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Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found Here

Where we left off in Part 182…

Lois took several deep breaths, and he could tell that the eye of her furicane had passed and he was about to be pummeled with the brunt of the storm. “I thought we were a couple,” she said softly. “I thought we’d finally have time for us. I thought we would make these kinds of decisions together.”

His newly found pride flexed its muscles. “Lois, we are a couple, but I can’t run every decision I make past you first. If this investigation wasn’t over, if we had gone ahead with our escape plan for you, we still wouldn’t be together for several days,” he reminded her. “All I’m going to do is spend two days sitting by the pool soaking up as much sunshine as possible, and then I’m coming home. Two days!” Clark flung out his hand in exasperation. “I can get that better out in Las Vegas than I can from my patio, here, in Metropolis.” He lowered his voice. “You know how important sunshine is to my healing.”

“Yes, but…”

“This is about me recovering faster,” he said. “This isn’t about us.”

“By not including me in the decision making process, or even considering whether I might want to come with you or would want you here with me, you made it about us,” she replied.

Clark closed his eyes and exhaled a deep breath. He couldn’t believe she was making a mountain out of this drop of sand. Apparently, he had misread this situation and he needed to fold this hand. He didn’t want to argue. “You’re right, Lois. I’m sorry. Do you want to come to Las Vegas with us?” he asked, hoping she would say ‘no’.

Jimmy would kill him if she said ‘yes’.

Clark needed these few days to recover his wits and prepare himself mentally and physically for their upcoming conversation about their relationship. He needed some space and time away from Lois to clear that video out of his mind and set himself on the right course. Why couldn’t she give him that?

Lois straightened her shoulders. “No,” she said coldly. “You weren’t wrong when you said I have things to clean up here in Metropolis.” She placed a hand on his chest, and he wondered if she was about to pull his heart out. “Maybe you’re right, Clark. Perhaps we do need some time apart to think about what we really do want.”

He placed his hand over hers. Geez, he was only asking for two days to help out a troubled friend and recover from his ordeal. How many times in their relationship had he ever asked and been granted something he wanted? “I want you, Lois. That will never change.”

She closed her eyes and leaned her head against his chest, clinging to him in a manner that made him feel like she was saying ‘goodbye’, because she didn’t think he would ever return.

He was trying to be the man she wanted him to be. He was saying all the right words about loving her. It was hard to be romantic when his head felt like a Cyclops was repeatedly smashing boulders against it. He loved her, but he couldn’t talk right now. He needed to get past this problem first, before he could focus on her.

“I love you,” she whispered, so softly that he almost didn’t hear it being that his good hearing was currently on the fritz.

“I really do like this haircut, Lois,” Clark said, and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll call you tonight, and give you the number of the hotel. I promise you, when I get back, we’ll have that talk.”

He tried to tell her that he loved her, again, but the words got stuck in his throat. Instead, he tightened his embrace and hoped she would understand.

***

Part 183

Lois marched into Luthor’s private express elevator to the Lex Tower Penthouse. How dare Clark think he was the only one who needed to get away from Metropolis for a few days? Jimmy might have been in jail, but hadn’t she been Luthor’s prisoner these last months? Hadn’t the Voyeur kept her under constant watch and control? Didn’t her lack of freedom and privacy earn her the right for a vacation?

Who was she kidding? Lois scoffed at herself. Her go on vacation? Ha! Clark knew her well enough to know that she wouldn’t leave town with all these little details still to be ironed out. She just hated that it was his idea for her to stay and work, while he went to rest and recover in the sun of party town, even if that was what she would have chosen as well. She hoped he ended up with a sunburn. It would serve him right.

The doors opened and a uniformed officer stopped her from exiting until she informed him who she was and that Inspector Henderson had requested her presence. The man, then, pointed her in the direction of Luthor’s office.

She stormed into the room, grumbling, “What is it now, Henderson?”

“Good afternoon to you, too, Ms. Lane,” he replied coolly. “It’s so nice of you to join me to clarify a few loose ends.”

Lois glared at him. She was happy to have the distraction from thinking about Clark and his un-Clark-like behavior of not doing what she wanted him to do, but she refused to acknowledge her heartache to Inspector Henderson. To him, she was still Mad Dog Lane and that was how she wanted it to remain.

“Okay, then. I would like you to show me this secret room you mentioned in your note,” Henderson said, stretching out one hand to the weapons display case.

She couldn’t believe it. Did he need her to hand feed him all the evidence against Luthor, dead or not? “I’m surprised Sheldon Bender didn’t try to stop you from going through Lex Luthor’s things and files,” Lois said, approaching the display case. She glided her hand along the edge.

“Oh, he did. Trust me; he did try. He even accused me and the MPD of hounding the man to jump, but with all the evidence your gang at the Daily Planet…” He cleared his throat. “Sorry. From the former Daily Planet that you guys and I had collected against Lex Luthor made a quite solid search warrant. Coupled with this building being an active crime scene and all…” He let the rest of his explanation hang.

Lois’s chest ached at his words regarding the Daily Planet, and she frowned. She had a bad feeling that Lex had gotten away with murder, because there had been no way to prove what he had done. Being tried in death was a bit like being tried in absentia, but to Lois’s thinking better tried in the press than not at all. She sighed, doubting the Metropolis Star was the paper for the job. What with their owner in jail and all.

Her fingers brushed the first button and the extra weapons drawer opened. Then, she finally found the one for Lex’s secret room.

Henderson rubbed his chin with his index finger as the door swung open, revealing the charred ruins of the vault.

“No!” Lois gasped, leaping forward. “I swear it wasn’t like this before.”

“I believe you,” he said softly. “I kind of hoped there was yet another room full of unblemished treasures.”

“What happened?” she demanded, flinging a hand towards the blackened room. “Did someone set off a bomb in here?”

“Luthor happened. He typed in some sort of kill code into his computer just before he jumped. Not only did it incinerate most everything in this fire-safe room, but the code also erased all content from his personal hard drive. I’m afraid that included all the surveillance evidence from your apartment.”

Lois felt torn. It was good that nobody else could watch her every move over the last four months, but she hated the destruction of any evidence against the megalomaniac. Even if they had caught him, Lex had destroyed much of the hard evidence she had collected against him. Her brow furrowed. “Most everything? What survived?” she asked, glancing into the still smoke-smelling room.

“Let me correct that statement,” Henderson said. “That we know of.”

Her gaze landed on the safe. It was roughly two feet square in size. “You couldn’t get the safe open,” she stated.

“The circuits were fried in the fire, but amazingly still operational. The tech guys were able to decode the last three digits out of the eight. 9-9-3.”

“Sounds like a date.”

“Well, golly-gee, Miss Lane, I’m so glad you were able to come here to tell us that,” Henderson mocked with a teasing grin. His voice returned to normal with his next words. “But which date?”

A-ha! This was why he had summoned her. “How in the hell should I know?” she retorted. “Ask Mrs. Cox. She was closer to him than me.”

“We did. She was surprised by the date combo. She thought it was a normal six number combo,” he replied. He leaned closer to Lois and whispered, “Even the Feds couldn’t open it with their fancy equipment. They were about to haul it back to DC to hook it up to their computers when I thought of you.” He beamed at her.

It was so nice of the FBI to let Inspector Henderson liaise with her instead of some strange agents in dark suits, sunglasses, and big attitude. She hadn’t trusted any federal types since dealing with Trask and Bureau 39. Then, again, maybe Henderson had merely lost the coin toss.

“Why me?” she asked innocently, already knowing the answer.

“You were engaged to the man.”

Lois scowled. She didn’t need the reminder, nor did she want to admit she didn’t have any guesses for him.

“Uh… Do you recall the dates of any of your…” He cleared his throat again. “Dates?”

“We met on the night of his White Orchid Ball.”

“We tried that one,” he said with a shake of his head.

In her and Lex’s ‘relationship’ all the real… ugh… romance began when she went undercover to investigate him, which happened this year. “The date he shot me?” she suggested.

Henderson wrote that down in his notebook. “Anything else?”

She shrugged, doubting Lex would want to immortalize the date of her refusal to sleep with him the first time he had mentioned her coming back to his penthouse for a nightcap. Instead, she said vaguely, “I can supply you with a list of all the dates we went out.”

He took a step or two back before asking in an off-hand manner, “Would any of them have a particular importance?”

Bastard. “Not to me,” she replied sharply. “And I doubt to him.”

Henderson frowned. “Thanks.”

The way he said it she got the sinking feeling they already had tried all of their official dates from last summer. So much for privacy.

Of course! Mrs. Cox would have those listed on Lex’s schedule.

Lois hated that Lex had beat them at yet another thing, and she was a bit offended that it hadn’t been any of their dates. He was supposed to have been in love with her, after all. She stepped away from the secret room and went over to Lex’s desk as she tried to come up with another date to open the safe. All of the drawers were open and clearly, the MPD’s crime scene guys or, more likely, Federal Agents had riffled through them.

There was the night that Lex had bought her from Toni Taylor and the Metros. It would be just like Lex to consider the night he had paid for her favors as significant enough to remember. She would have to look it up in last year’s calendar when she returned home.

Should she mention the day after her birthday when they had eaten lunch at the Top of the Tower? She doubted it was important enough of an occasion. She was about to mention her own birthday, but she wasn’t born the previous year nor had they spent it together. She had spent her birthday on her first official date with Clark.

A small smile brushed her lips as she wished he were here with her. His brain was much better at recalling dates. The smile fell from her mouth as she recalled that he was on the way to Las Vegas at this moment. She hoped she found the scoop of the century in Luthor’s penthouse apartment, so that she could rub it in her partner’s face that he shouldn’t have left during this important time. It would be his just desserts.

As Lois ran her fingers over the wood of Lex’s desk, she saw a scrap of paper under it. It was the size of a fortune cookie message. She bent down to retrieve it, but before she could read it, Henderson commanded her attention by clearing his throat.

“Catch a cold?” she asked, tucking the slip of paper into her pocket, lest he accuse her of stealing evidence from a dead man’s trial.

“I’m fine. Thank you for your concern,” he replied in the same cynical tone with which she had asked.

She continued to stare at him, waiting for him to go on.

“There was something else I found that I thought you might want to see.” Henderson held out his hand to the door leading back into Lex’s penthouse living room.

Lois took one last look around Lex’s desk in hopes to find clarity in the billionaire’s actions from the previous day. In one of the open desk drawers, she saw something odd: an empty Phantom of the Opera CD case.

She recalled once when Lex had asked her about her experience with theatre that she had made some remark about having seen the play during its initial run on Broadway. He had replied that it wasn’t true opera.

Well, duh! She had thought at the time. Even an uncultured simpleton as her – sarcasm heavily ladled on – knew that! While Lex had been his usual charm and smiles, she couldn’t help thinking that he hadn’t liked the play himself. When he had continued to tell her that he would introduce her to his favorite entertainment someday, his tone had implied her taste in such theatre was low class and he had much to teach her.

Therefore, it was odd that he would have a copy of the soundtrack in his desk. She doubted the possibility of it being a discarded gag gift from some friend because Lex hadn’t seemed to have a sense of humor or friends. It also wouldn’t explain where the CD itself had disappeared off to.

Lois followed Inspector Henderson’s suggestion to see what he wanted to show her. They walked up the grand staircase, but instead of turning towards the penthouse’s front door, Henderson took her down the hall to the right, which led her to Lex’s private rooms.

As a reporter, such a tour of Lex Luthor’s private rooms should have had her drooling with anticipation. Instead, the part of her that had endured more than enough of the man was telling her to run.

Run and never look back.

***

The man on the aisle seat shifted his position, accidentally nudging Clark’s sore shoulder and thus waking him. Clark had been thinking about his final embrace with Lois before he had left, which had relaxed him enough to fall asleep. Amazingly, he wasn’t tormented with nightmares of Luthor’s sex tape, and had been able to sleep dream free. Now that he was awake again, he no longer had that luxury.

“Sorry,” the man next to Clark mumbled, folding his newspaper.

On the cover of the Metropolis Star, under the fold, was a picture of a horrified Lois. She was wearing a wedding dress, standing in Lex Tower Plaza, and splattered with blood. Her mother, standing next to her in the photo, was drenched in it.

Clark swallowed a baseball-sized lump down his throat, trying to dampen it enough to find his voice. “Excuse me,” he said hoarsely, nodding towards the paper. “May I?”

“Sure,” the man said, handing it over. “I’m finished.” He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.

“Thanks,” Clark said, unfolding the whole broadsheet and reading the entire article through twice.

Then he folded up the paper and swatted the man sitting next to him on the other side, waking him.

“Whaa?” Jimmy grumbled, startling awake.

“She witnessed his death?” Clark hissed, dropping the paper in Jimmy’s lap. “Don’t you think you missed a bit in that description?”

Jimmy gulped as he glanced down at the photo. “I…”

“You what?” Clark asked, glancing over at the man in the aisle seat to make sure he wasn’t listening.

“I thought you knew,” Jimmy sputtered.

“You thought I knew?” Clark echoed incredulously. Jimmy had never had a serious relationship. The closest had been that on-again off-again crush on Lois’s little sister. Jimmy had lived enough in the world that he should’ve gleaned enough information about women from the media to know that Clark shouldn’t have left town. For Clark to have taken off after such a traumatic event, no matter if what he had experienced was worse, was a serious breach of his relationship with Lois. No wonder she had acted as if he didn’t care for her when they had spoken at the Daily Planet. He should have been clued in by her reaction to this trip. “Do you really think that I would have agreed to Vegas if I had known?”

“I… uh… I…um… She’s seen worse,” Jimmy muttered with a shrug of his shoulder.

“Seeing is one thing,” Clark whispered back, pointing at the photo. “This is entirely different.”

God, no wonder Lois was so upset that I hadn’t been there for her after the wedding, Clark berated himself.

“Look. I’m sorry, but we’ll be in Vegas soon. You’ll be back in Metropolis in less than two days…”

“I’ll be back in Metropolis on the next flight out of town,” Clark corrected. “The first thing I’m going to do is call…” He glanced quickly at the man next to him. “— her, and see if she’ll ever forgive me.” He would be lucky if she took his call. “Then, I’m hopping on the next plane home to beg for her forgiveness.”

“She’ll understand,” Jimmy said.

“I don’t understand, so how could she?” Clark retorted, running a hand through his hair. “We were doing so well. We had plans. We were going to… to…” Run away together. He rubbed his forehead. Instead, he had gone off with Jimmy. How could he and Lois talk about a future, when Clark couldn’t tell her what happened the day before? How could he comfort her, when every touch reminded him of that video? He required some time to recover, but she needed him to be there for her.

“I’m sorry, man, but I thought that’s why you drank so much last night and why you were back so early this morning asking if every phone call was her. I thought you knew and that she had already pushed you away,” Jimmy said. “So, I figured if you gave her a few days to cool off and realize what she was missing…”

“I love her. She is my life, Jimmy. There is no running away. I’m not going because she pushed me away. If I hadn’t been…” Clark’s voice faded as he recalled the shooting pain up his arms and through his entire body every time he grabbed hold of those bars. It had felt like molten lava, and he was the only one alive who could state that with any certainty. He cleared his throat. “— hurt…”

“Yeah, exactly! You were beaten up and left unconscious in that alley. Then you wandered lost for hours, trying to make your way back to civilization with a concussion and without a penny to your name. What were you thinking heading out without your wallet, man? If those homeless guys hadn’t found you and taken you back to the shelter for the night, who knows what would have happened to you? But then your clothes were stolen, when you took a shower yesterday morning. You were lucky that Cat was home when you called her collect and could bring you one of Phil’s suits to wear.” Jimmy shook his head. “You need a vacation, CK, just as much as she might need you back home. She’s got to understand that.”

Clark’s jaw fell open as he stared at his friend. That was the cover story Cat had told Denny when she had brought him home yesterday? And she was always teasing him about his lousy excuses.

Frankly, he had been so exhausted he couldn’t think straight that he hadn’t listened to what she had said. He had taken off the borrowed suit and his blue suit and stood in a hot shower for fifteen minutes, trying to wash Luthor’s grime off his body. He snapped his jaw shut. “Either way, I’m calling Lois as soon as we land.”

“It’s two nights, CK,” Jimmy said, leaning his head back against his pillow. “Fifty bucks says she tells you not to come home early.”

That was what Clark was afraid of.

***

Inspector Henderson opened a closed door at the end of the hall just past the private sitting room where Lex had entertained Lois after those terrorizing thieves who had taken over the Daily Planet had shot him.

That sitting room had been the only room in Lex’s private apartments she had ever visited. The ‘library’ next door to his office downstairs was only for show, so Lois had discounted it.

Henderson waited in the hall as Lois peered inside the room. As she had suspected, it was Lex’s bedchamber. One couldn’t really call it a ‘room’ as it was the size of her entire apartment.

Along the far side of the room were floor to ceiling windows. Correction: half the wall was windows to enjoy the Metropolis skyline. The other half was glass French doors – the hypocrite – leading onto a patio easily six times the size of Clark’s small patio. With a second glance, she saw it went past the edge of the building to encompass a garden and, as she stepped into the room and was able to see further into the garden, saw that nestled within the shrubbery was a…

“Pool?” she sputtered. Sunken with crystal blue water.

“Of all this you could’ve been mistress,” Henderson jested from behind her.

Lois wanted to slug him.

“Actually, I’m surprised you noticed that before your marital bed,” he added.

She pulled her attention from Lex’s luxurious penthouse garden to the half of the room off to the right of the door she had just entered.

The headboard of the bed extended past the edges of the bed itself to cover a good half of the wall and consisted of a monstrous wood carving frieze of predatory animals hunting and attacking one another. Stampeding across the frieze above the bed was a herd of elephants, two of which reared out fully from the relief and had bronze rings where their tusks should be, framing the bed area underneath. Waves of wooden water extended out from the wall to form the base upon which the mattress lay. It was an ostentatious and hideous piece of furniture in Lois’s opinion.

Ebony black silk sheets covered what must’ve been larger than a king-sized mattress. On top of the black sheets lay a white comforter, which she had only been able to ascertain due to what draped over the edge, as a thick heart of rose petals had covered the top. Red rose petals surrounded by a mixture of white and pink rose petals.

Lois shivered. Not from disgust or fear, but because the air conditioning had been cranked to maximum. “It’s a bit chilly in here,” she murmured.

“This is exactly as I found it,” Henderson insisted. “Perhaps he didn’t want the rose petals to wilt or the champagne to require ice to chill it or…” He paused, looking Lois in the eye. “He figured you two would provide your own heat.”

Lois’s stomach began to churn. She knew she shouldn’t have skipped lunch. Then, again, what Luthor had expected…

Something draped on a chair nearby the bed caught her attention. Was that a sheer off-white nighty? This had to be a prank.

“Very funny!” she archly retorted. “Did you and the others down at the Twelfth set up this little scenario as a joke?”

Henderson raised his hands in a slight surrender movement. “I wish we had, Ms. Lane, but I guarantee you, this room is exactly as I found it yesterday, during my search for your fiancé.” He cleared his throat and said more softly, “Nobody has been allowed in his private rooms.”

Something in his tone suggested that he spoke the truth. She glanced around the room, not believing that Henderson would’ve kept the others out for her own sake. What exactly was she missing?

The proportions of this room were off. If the patio garden was large enough for that sunken pool, then…

On the wall opposite the bed was an ornate and easily eight-foot long and high mahogany framed mirror. Only Lex Luthor would want to have a mirror with which to watch himself on his bed. Her brow furrowed as she tilted her head to study it. It would be difficult to watch oneself from such an angle, though. It would work better as a viewing window. Her stomach dropped.

He hadn’t dared!

She turned the knob of the door to the right of this mirror. It led to a hall. On the right side of the hall was the private bathroom. Although “private” was hardly the word to describe it.

Again, the walls of the bathroom were glass, looking out onto the patio garden. The shower stall with no less than six heads was also clear glass and the sunken Jacuzzi tub next to it had no way to enter or exit it without exposing oneself to the outside world in some manner.

True, to Luthor’s defense of this bad taste, Lex Tower was higher than any other building in Metropolis. There would be no way to see what was happening in the bathroom unless one had a jet pack or flew. As there had never been any reports of throw-up falling from the heavens, she knew Clark hadn’t looked. Not that he would’ve wanted to.

“One-way glass,” Henderson reassured from behind her. She had forgotten he was there. “We can see out but nobody can see in.”

Lois nodded. That made more sense.

To the left of the small hall off the bedroom was his closet. A deep room as wide as her bedroom filled with business suits, leather shoes, and a couple of antique dressers. She didn’t see a way to access behind that mirror in the bedroom, though. Perhaps her imagination was merely getting the worst of her.

She kept walking along the hall. Past the closet was another room with floor to ceiling mirrors.

“He certainly had an image to maintain,” Henderson commented.

“He was vain,” Lois retorted.

Past the mirror room was another long closet, although, not as long as the suit closet. It was filled with designer women’s clothing.

“At first, I thought this was Luthor’s real secret,” Henderson said with a chuckle. “As the clothes aren’t in your style…”

“I highly doubt he was a cross-dresser, Inspector,” Lois said, fingering some of the dresses. “No, he did assume to know my tastes, or what he thought my tastes should be. Should you find my suitcase among these things, I would like it returned.” Although, she hadn’t packed it with any clothing she would miss, not expecting to ever see it again.

The dressing room Luthor had set up for her was finely decorated with an ornate make-up table at the end. While the room was beautiful, it still seemed to lack the elegance or size of his own closets, as if to remind Lois of whose importance was paramount in their relationship.

None of these discoveries was surprising, knowing Luthor’s character. She turned to leave the closet, passing Henderson. “I believe I’ve seen enough.”

“Then you’d be wrong,” he said as they stepped back in the bedroom.

Apparently, Henderson thought she was missing something. She positioned herself with her back to that hideous bed and examined the room once more.

To the left of the giant mirror was yet another door. She strode over and opened it. Inside was a small study or office, much smaller than his one downstairs. There was a desk, a couple of chairs, and a wall of bookshelves covered with books. These actually looked as if they had been read, as opposed to the ones in his designer library off his public office. She was about to leave the room out of boredom, when she recalled the false bookcase in her father’s office, which had led to a hidden room.

Lois started tossing books from the shelves.

“Ah. So, you did notice what I had. That the proportions of this room were off from that in the bedroom,” the inspector said. “If you don’t want anyone else to discover it, may I recommend searching for the title a little more neatly?”

She stayed her hand. Had Henderson just admitted to concealing or covering up evidence? For what purpose?

She looked over the shelves, again, before taking hold of a metal giraffe statue, which didn’t quite fit Luthor’s style. Sure enough, it was attached to the shelf with a cord and unlocked the door to a secret room, when she tugged on it.

Thanks, Dad.

As Lois pulled the edge of the bookcase open, she noticed that the dark room seemed to be lit with an eerie green light. Stepping inside, she saw that the right wall was a huge picture window facing the master bedroom, or more accurately Luthor’s bed. Bingo!

To the left of the window were two video cameras. One pointed out the huge ‘mirror’ to the bed, and one pointed into the secret room. As she turned to see to what the second camera hoped to capture, her eyes were drawn to the rings of glowing green lights on the floor and dangling from the ceiling.

She flipped a light switch to reveal a set of shackles bolted to the floor several feet apart and under three manacles hanging from a chained bar coming down from the ceiling. The center ring was larger than the other two as if to restrain someone’s neck. The set-up reminded Lois of the bondage wall in Luthor’s office downstairs, except for the green glow.

Lois let go of the cuff and opened her mouth to speak, but found she had no words. Her heart pounded as she reached up to tug one of the handcuffs lower and confirm her suspicions. It was encrusted with fragments of a green glowing rock.

“Who?” she finally sputtered, even though she knew the answer and knew it very well. Only one man could be controlled by green glowing rock. Her mind flashed to Clark’s sallow appearance when she had seen him several hours earlier. His eyes had been bloodshot. He had flinched whenever she touched him as if he were in pain.

“Don’t you know?” Henderson replied.

He knew. She didn’t know how Henderson knew, but he did. Then, she rememebered that she had called Henderson in to help her remove the Kryptonite dust off her engagement ring. It explained his discretion earlier. It wasn’t for her sake as much as Superman’s.

Had Henderson found Superman waiting in this chamber? Had she been wrong about Superman having been exposed at the bombing of the children’s home? On the other hand, had Superman been captured there and brought here? Had Clark slowly and painfully had the life sucked out of him as he was forced to stare out that window at Luthor’s honeymoon bed and wonder when Lois would be brought to it? Neither thoughts of her going willingly or dragged unwillingly would bring him comfort.

Her imagination went wild with what Luthor had done to Superman in this chamber, while he had been under his enemy’s power.

She pulled her eyes away from the Kryptonite covered rings and saw that the back of the room was stacked with videos. Her hand rose to her mouth. She took a step forward.

Antoinette Baines, PhD.

Toni Taylor.

Elizabeth Cox.

Miranda.

Lena Harrison.

Gretchen Kelly, MD.

Diana Stride.

Amber Lake.

Lisa Rockford.

These were just a few of the names that jumped out at her. There were many, many more.

Inspector Henderson came to stand next to her.

“There’s one name you won’t find on that wall,” Lois said, striding out of the room. “Mine!”

She stopped in Luthor’s private study to lean against one of the high backed chairs to catch her breath and to find her Mad Dog mask that she wore in front of others. She couldn’t drag it up; it was simply gone. She gulped air, trying to keep the tears clouding her eyes at bay. No wonder Clark hadn’t wanted to talk to her about it. What had Luthor done to Clark?

He needed time. Time to heal, Clark had said. And distance.

Lois winced. He had meant distance from her, as she had first supposed.

And from this investigation, from his thoughts, and from the nightmare which was Lex Luthor. It amazed her that Clark had thought he could be cured from Luthor’s treatment in a mere two days. Did Clark’s abilities help him block out the emotional anguish that came with this chosen profession of hero? No wonder he hadn’t wanted her to come to Vegas.

Then she recalled how when she first knew Clark, he had choked up when he spoke about witnessing the death of his parents, and how the smell of sweets and the taste of chocolate brought it to the forefront of his mind. No, he was as helpless as any human was in that regard.

Clark hadn’t spoken to her about why he had disappeared the day before, or what had caused his absence from the end of their investigation. He hadn’t even told her about having been exposed to the Kryptonite. She had assumed, and wrongly at that, that Luthor had only wanted to kill Superman.

This… this was much worse.

***End of Part 183***

Part 184

So, what do you think of Lex's cozy little rooms? Comments